My Easy Listening/New Age/World

Both Enya and Mannheim Steamroller released new albums today (named And Winter Came... and Christmasville, respectively). This got me thinking back to the music my dad was into around the time I started buying CDs. He used to play Enya's Shepherd Moons nonstop at Christmastime and his Fresh Aire VI by Mannheim Steamroller was a precursor to my own interest in instrumental music. Listening to the new Enya made me realize that her sometimes-bassy, synthesizer string sound fits right in with current hip hop club hits. Kanye could rap over "Trains and Winter Rains" without cutting or mixing and it would sound just like what you'd expect to hear from him. Anyway, Enya's contemporaries are far from hip hop but a future mash-up might give both musical genres the freshening up that they desperately need. Hip hop could be so much more than what gets played on "top 40" radio stations, just as new age should not have to be limited to the style you hear on the Pure Moods CD series. I don't even know if I would classify Enya or Mannheim Steamroller as strictly "new age." I'll leave you to do your own classifying with the artists on the mix below (which are just 20 somewhat relatable ones I put together on my iPod):

1. "Blu-Lu-Lup" - Lord Fly with Dan Williams and His Orchestra
2. "Brush on Silk" - John Williams, from Memoirs of a Geisha
3. "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" - Perez Prado Orchestra
4. "Cintec De Nunta" - Zamfir
5. "Ebudae" - Enya
6. "Flute Music of the Andes" - Pajaro Campana
7. "Forest Hymn" - Deep Forest
8. "Funiculi Funicula" - Familia Lima
9. "Heart Still Beating" - Ottmar Hebert
10. "Hunours of Kilfenora/The Independents (Hornpipes) - James Galway and the Chieftains
11. "Iyanu (Surprises)" - Mickey Hart
12. "Je t'attendes" - Charles Aznavour
13. "Magalenha" - Sergio Mendes
14. "Milord" - Edith Piaf
15. "Pahrump" - Big Water
16. "Sadeness (Pt. 1)" - Enigma
17. "Só Nós Dois" - Claudinho & Buchecha
18. "Tickle It" - Mocean Worker
19. "Twilight at Rhodes" - Mannheim Steamroller
20. "Volare" - Gipsy Kings

OUT TODAY ON DVD: DISNEY'S DR. SYN THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH